Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Hells Gate project in North Queensland will be a landmark in Australian history. It will be one of the bigger dams in Australian history. It will produce 0.2 per cent of Australia's diesel as biodiesel, seven per cent of Australia's petrol as ethanol, 1½ per cent of Australia's electricity, two per cent of Australia's timber and over 10 per cent of Australia's beef production—all of this with zero emissions, employing new algae biotechnology which is being used throughout the world. This will be the first major scheme that utilises this approach.

Most important of all, for my constituents that live in Townsville, it will provide Townsville with water from the mountains, 1,300 feet above sea level—instead of the stupid, incredible decision to try and get the water from sea level. If you pump it from sea level to sea level, friction means you've got to pump it. Up here, it comes through hydro-electric generators and delivers the water, the cheapest water in Australia, for Townsville, and the most adequate water supply anywhere. The old Greenvale railway line is there, still intact, and the bridges and tunnels. So plastic pipe can come through those things straight to Townsville. We have had a chronic water shortage situation since I was the— (Time expired)